Property rent/buy

[Heartbroken]

Hi everyone, not sure if this is in the correct category but never mind.

I'm currently renting the property i live in (privately rented) through a letting agency. I would ideally like to buy the property in the future but am not quite sure if this can be done or if the landlady would actually even consider it, which makes me feel a little awkward about bringing up the subject via the letting agency. Has anybody ever been in this situation before? obviously a distinct advantage to the landlady would be that some costs associated with selling a property would be bypassed but i'm unsure whether this is done very often??!! just a bit of advice if anyone can give any would be greatly appreciated.

[bednobs]

i was in the same situation as you a few yearsago; we approached the landlord directly. He turned us down for the following reasons
1) he was making loads of money out of us by renting
2) house prices had gone up a lot since he had bought the place, so he wuld have been really hammered on capital gains tax. He intended to keep the property

[Ethel]

No harm writing to the owner via the agent stating your interest in buying at proper market price.

My neighbour bought the house from the private landlord last year after renting for five years or so, and then telling the landlord he would be interested in buying.